Pre-fab tiny house prototype costs $1200, can be built in 3 hours

Hold on to your wallets, because this little dwelling isn't for sale yet, but it is a promising development in the tiny house movement.

Tiny houses aren't for everybody, and they may not even be for most people, but if you're looking to slim down your personal material footprint, and are comfortable getting by with a very small dwelling, a tiny home might be worth looking into. Of course, you'll still need to find a place where it's legal to build and live in one, and then figure out how to get water, power, and a toilet in it, but those aren't necessarily deal breakers for the types of resourceful people who often pursue tiny house living. But two of the facets of tiny houses that can trip people up are the costs, which can be rather high for such a small home if choosing a pre-built or custom-built house, and the construction skills necessary to build one yourself, if going the DIY route.

However, there may be a solution to both of those issues if the tiny house company Pin Up Houses follows through with its latest prototype, as the folks there have been looking into the prospects of making mass production pre-fab models, and have built one of them, dubbed "France," with an estimated cost of just $1200.

The France is a really small tiny house, and even if that seems redundant, try to imagine living in just 74 square feet, with no indoor bathroom whatsoever. Perhaps there needs to be another term for this sort of dwelling, such as a tiny tiny house? An itty-bitty tiny house? Regardless of the nomenclature, the France is just a prototype, and maybe a production model would add a bit more space to the interior, or a series of optional add-ons for additional comfort.

The house has three small sections, with a bedroom at one end, separated by a multifunction shelving unit, a living space in the middle, and a kitchenette and woodburning stove at the other end. The home rests on stilts, not a foundation, which may pose an issue in high wind areas, or be cause for adding plenty of insulation under the floor, but which may make building the units easier on uneven ground. And of course, you'll still need to figure out a way to answer the call of nature (perhaps a humanure toilet in its own little tiny building?) as well as a water storage and distribution system and some form of electricity system (such as a small solar array with battery storage), but hey, at a cost of just $1200, it's possible to add those things yourself and still come in well under the cost of some fancy garden sheds.